Blogito ergo sum! Actually, as N.T. Wright averred, "'Amor, ergo sum:' I am loved, therefore I am." Among other things, I am a Roman Catholic deacon. This is a public cyberspace in which I seek to foster Christian discipleship in the late modern milieu in the diakonia of koinonia and in the recognition that "the Eucharist is the only place of resistance to annihilation of the human subject."

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Thursday, February 15, 2007

Valentine's Day and Women, part tres

Catching up with my good friend Rocco, over at Whispers this morning, he has an excellent post on how Pope Benedict XVI was not just making empty gestures with his words about women at yesterday's General Audience. Even before becoming pope, Joseph Ratzinger, for many years, has had close women collaborators. He takes seriously the need for women to play a more instrumental role in the Church, which means nothing less than allowing competent women (of which there are many in the Church) to serve in positions and influence. He is certainly bright enough to know that in order to accomplish his goal of re-evangelizing Western Europe, which is perhaps the main reason for him choosing the Papal name Benedict, the status of women in the Church has to increase. Anyway, to cite just one example from the piece, which is entitled, "Anything Other Than Secondary": All the Pope's Women :"At the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the cardinal-prefect elevated through the ranks the Belgian theologian Marie Hendrickx. In a Curia whose heights are overwhelmingly dominated by clerics, Hendrickx is currently the highest-ranking laywoman in any dicastery and the second-ranking layperson overall, after Dr Angelo Scelzo, the undersecretary of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications. However, though Scelzo enjoys "superior" status as the his office's #3 official, given the purview and prestige of the CDF -- to say nothing of her personal ties to her boss of two decades -- the case could well be made that Hendrickx, who wrote a celebrated 2001 piece in L'Osservatore Romano protesting animal cruelty, is the most influential layperson in the Curial bureaucracy."

The post also contains a complete translation of the entire catechesis given by the Holy Father at yesterday's audience.

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About Me

I am husband and Dad to six lovely children. I am also a Roman Catholic deacon of the Diocese of Salt Lake City. I married in 1993, became a Dad for the first time in 1994 and most recently in 2011 (quite a spread). I was was ordained in 2004. After serving for 11 years at The Cathedral of the Madeleine in Salt Lake City, I am now assigned to St Olaf's Parish in Bountiful, Utah. I am a graduate of the University of Utah and the Institute in Pastoral Ministry at St. Mary's University of Minnesota.

Madeleine Delbrêl

"We fashion the immortal being we are through our choices. Through our choices we bring the man in us to the fullness of life or to the worst of human suffering. At the hour of his death each human being has become either a person who will live with God forever, or who will be without God forever" Madeleine Delbrêl

St. Paul

"I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect" (Rom. 12:1-2)